The driving concept behind the Pentagon’s Third Offset Strategy comes down to : If we’re not changing, we’re losing to “pacing competitors” like Russia and China in conventional warfare. – USNI News

U.S. Special Operations Command is making progress researching, developing and testing a next-generation Iron Man-like suit designed to increase strength and protection and help keep valuable operators alive when they kick down doors and engage in combat, officials said. – Scout Warrior

The current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, and the former uniformed leader of the Air Force were viewed as "great leaders but weak on strategic thinking," according to a Pentagon official detailed to the National Security Council. – Associated Press

The new aircraft, engineered to succeed the 5th-generation F-35 Joint StrikeFighter and explode onto the scene by the mid 2030s, is now in the earliest stages of conceptual development with the Air Force and Navy. The two services are now working together on early conceptual discussions about the types of technologies and capabilities the aircraft will contain. While the Air Force has not yet identified a platform for the new aircraft. – Scout Warrior

Lieutenant General David Barno, USA (Ret.) and Nora Bensahel write: DEF is not a panacea for all of the Pentagon’s predicaments, but it is an innovative grassroots model for connecting and empowering the most innovative and forward-looking parts of the defense community to help address them…DEF is a ray of hope that new thinking and new minds can help lead the way to long-term reforms that are desperately needed. – War on the Rocks

The evolving relationship between the United States and India in terms of trade and security presents “a tremendous opportunity to the next administration,” the National Security Council’s senior official for South Asia said Wednesday. – USNI NewsIndia has begun a fresh program to acquire single-engine fighter aircraft to be built in India on the basis of foreign technology, as invitations have been sent privately through Indian Embassies to "some overseas participants" to partake in the program, according to an official at the Ministry of Defence (MoD). – Defense NewsThe Indian army said a three-day standoff with suspected rebels ended Wednesday after government forces killed two militants inside a building in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. The building was extensively damaged in the fighting. – Associated Press

The battle for ISR primacy continues between the venerable U-2 and the unmanned Global Hawk, but the Northrop Grumman drone took another step forward Oct. 6 in its quest to do what its manned competition does, and more. – Breaking Defense“Outranged and outgunned” by Russian and Chinese missiles, the US Army wants a new long-range artillery rocket of its own. – Breaking Defense

The U.S. military can no longer count on dominating any domain of warfare against near peer enemies and instead must aim for “local and temporal domain superiority”– making efforts to tie together weapons and sensors in a cross-domain web more important than ever, the Navy’s deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems (OPNAV N9) told USNI News. – USNI News

The Army needs to radically overhaul its equipment, training, and even its culture for chaotic future conflicts against high-end adversaries like Russia and China, the largest service’s top leaders said today. But its modernization budget is up to $40 billion below the other services’. – Breaking Defense